Back To My Roots (or “Roadtrip Part 3”)

For the third time our British Classic Car Enthusiast takes his Classic back to Germany – but yet again in another old car: Call 911 this time!

Those of you that also dipped into the international edition of ViaRETRO from time to time might recall that I have twice previously written about road trips in my classic cars, going “Back to my Roots” in Germany – the first in 2018 with die Zitrone (Back to My Roots | ViaRETRO) and the second two years ago with my Mercedes 280CE (Back to my Roots Pt. 2 | ViaRETRO). I called these pieces Back to my Roots because the main aim of the trips was and still is to see my extended family in the south of Germany, who I’ve been visiting since I was a baby (with my parents, of course) and have tried to maintain that connection since my parents died.  The vast majority of the family live within 20km of Ulm, located on the Danube and the border between Bad Wurttemberg and Bavaria, it is best known for its enormous Münster (despite its size, a church, not a cathedral) boasting the world’s tallest church spire at 161m, from the top of which, on a clear day, you can see the Alps, and for being the birthplace of Albert Einstein.

My route differed a little on both previous occasions and for this trip, I changed it again, with stops in Maastricht and Cochem on the way out, Strasbourg on the way back. I hadn’t spent time in either Maastricht or Strasbourg before, but I did visit Cochem, a beautiful small town on the banks of the Mosel river, once before, way back in 1996, and I really wanted to experience this gorgeous part of Germany again.

My classic steed for the journey this time was my 1972 Porsche 911T – I had been looking forward to making the trip in this car ever since I bought it almost three years ago. It had a health check with Autofarm a couple of weeks ahead of the trip and had a few minor issues attended to. It’s obviously a much less spacious car than either the BMW or the Merc, but still easily capacious enough for a single person plus luggage for a 12-day round trip. Fully equipped with the mandatory emergency items and relying on the trusty Google Maps app on my screen-mounted phone for navigation, I set off on a bright and sunny morning – though it didn’t stay that way for long – at 06.00 from our village near Evesham with destination number one, the Euroshuttle channel tunnel terminal in Folkestone some 308km away, aiming to arrive for an 11.50 departure.

In the event I got there well ahead of schedule but unfortunately they were too busy to put me on an earlier train. It seems a combination of the Euro 2024 football championship about to kick-off in Germany and Le Mans weekend meant that Eurotunnel were running at full capacity…and behind schedule. I spotted a couple of fellow classic travellers, and there was an undeniably impressive Porsche 963 on display in the terminal. Despite the delay, and further delays in Belgium – where the motorways seem to be in even worse condition than in the UK – I rolled up to my hotel just outside Maastricht, the Teaching Hotel Chateau Bethlehem, which is run by first-year undergraduate students, hence the name, and an excellent job they do, too. Arriving just after 18.00 gave me time to enjoy a leisurely stroll around the centre of town as well as an excellent pizza.

Maastricht has played an important role in the history of the European Union, not least for the eponymous treaty and for being the birthplace of the Euro currency. The old town centre is very picturesque – the city apparently has almost 1700 national heritage buildings; I managed to see just a few on my wanderings.

After an excellent breakfast I headed towards the mighty Nurbürgring, taking just a couple of hours on the Autobahn, where – since I was travelling at a leisurely 110-115kmh, I was frequently passed at very high speeds, with occasional toots of recognition at the sight of a 52-year-old 911 bowling merrily along, particularly from drivers of modern 911s.

I had toyed with the idea of taking a lap around the Nordschleife but with my usual poor timing I turned up on the one day that week that the circuit was closed to the public, it being given over to an “industry day”. I did get to see some serious driving at the 16km mark and the photo opportunity was too good to miss.

From there I took to Landstrassen for the short drive to the very picturesque town of Bernkastel-Kues – crossing part of Belgium on the way – for a wander before continuing on to Cochem, where I would spend the night. This was a delightful journey – punctuated by the surprise appearance of the Goodyear blimp – in stunning surroundings, especially once I got to the Mosel itself, with vineyards all along either embankment. These small towns that punctuate the road along the river are so characterful, with streets full of old timbered buildings and often overseen by castles – this is a part of Germany famous for its Schlösser.

I stayed in the Cochem Park Hotel, just on the edge of the village – a consideration for this trip had to be secure parking, rarely available with town centre hotels – but it was only ten minute on foot to the centre. While walking along the Mosel into town I chanced upon an otter swimming along the shoreline – the first time I think I’ve ever seen one in the wild!

After breakfast, I began the last leg of my outward journey, to Rammingen, where half my cousins live. On the way, I stopped in beautiful Bacharach am Rhein, where on the aforementioned 1996 trip, my visit coincided with a parade of classics taking part in a 1,000km classic round trip, and I spent a lovely couple of hours on a wine bar terrace watching dozens of classics pass slowly by. That didn’t happen this time, but after an exhilarating climb out of Cochem on a winding forest road I did get the chance to wander about for an hour before heading on to my second iconic motorsport venue in two days – this time, the Hockenheimring, where on a very quiet day I was able to just walk into the stands to take a few photos. Even without the sound and fury of racing cars battling each other, racetracks have an atmosphere that generates excitement, at least to me.

From there it was on to the small village of Rammingen, where I parked up in my cousin’s drive after a leisurely 3.5 hours driving along some of Germany’s Landstrassen – the perfect way to travel in a classic, although there’s no doubt the quality of some of these roads has degraded in recent years, with some occasionally very uneven surfaces, the 911 feeding everything back through the steering wheel.

The next several days were spent shuttling between various relatives’ houses – although I did manage to make time for a visit to the Porche Museum in Stuttgart with one of my cousins to take my 911 to its birthplace and spiritual home. This was my third visit, and I will write a separate piece on it, but here’s a couple of teaser photos.

Having consumed what felt like my bodyweight in food and drink over a seven-day period, it was time to leave my family and start the journey home, with my interim destination being the cathedral city and home of the European Parliament for half the year, Strasbourg, just inside the French border. I hadn’t been to Strasbourg before, so wanted to have enough time to do some sightseeing, meaning using the Autobahn once more. Strasbourg is full of wonderful buildings – I liked what I saw enough to think I might return for a weekend sometime. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame was particularly spectacular, not least it’s astronomical clock.

After a good night’s rest at the Hotel du Dragon, the longest individual part of the trip lay before me – 625km to Calais and another 308km from Folkestone to home, to be completed in a day. This obviously meant motorway driving, but the smooth and free-flowing French toll roads made that part of the journey easy, despite some occasionally heavy rain for the middle three hours, which the 911’s wipers coped with well enough, and even the M25 around London was largely free of traffic jams – perhaps because it was a Saturday?

Having left Strasbourg at 6.30 CET I turned the Porsche, accessorised with dozens of bugs accumulated over the course of my travels, into my drive and garage at 7.15pm, in time to be welcomed by my other half with dinner and a restorative glass of wine, tired but exhilarated after what had been a long day behind the wheel, and an excellent road trip-cum-holiday.

I covered 3090km/1920 miles in total over twelve days, most of it in the first three and last two days of the trip, and bought 287.85 litres/63.34 gallons of fuel (having set off on Day 1 with a full tank, filling up again within a few miles of home), giving me better than expected fuel consumption figures equating to 9.32 litres per 100km/30.3 miles per gallon if my calculations are correct – not too shabby.

How did this trip differ from the previous two? Well, it was a lot less relaxing – after all, my 911 is a 52-year-old sports car; it’s noisy, transmits every change in road surface through the steering wheel and requires staying focused even more than usual. And yet – it was also enormous fun, and like the BMW six years ago, was greeted enthusiastically throughout my days in Germany, especially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, around Stuttgart. In France, no-one cared – Gallic indifference ruled.

Disappointingly, I spotted very few classics on the road or even parked up over this 12-day trip, and I didn’t see a single example of the same generation 911 as my own, not even in Stuttgart. Still, you can’t have everything…and I had my own classic 911 to enjoy.